Cold comfort First significant snowstorm of the year promises relief to seasonal businesses

As the snow continued to fall outside Millinocket’s Scootic Inn, about 35 people, a good crowd for a Monday night, were sitting down to dinner. The mood was buoyant, owner George Simon said.

At the other end of the town’s business district, Best Value Inn owner Tim Darling was plowing the perimeter of his hotel grounds on Central Street to make it more accessible to the area’s snowmobile trails. Inside, the switchboard was starting to light up with reservation requests.

Lots of people hate snow and the inconveniences it brings.

To these folks, whose economy depends significantly upon snowmobile tourism, it’s a hallelujah chorus from the sky.

“You can see the morale changing right away. People are glad to see the snow,” Simon said Monday. “And you don’t have to be in business to see the morale change. Everybody knows that we as a community depend on the season, and that we have been struggling. They are just glad to see the snow. Finally.”

The first heavy snowstorm of 2007 hit Monday and was expected to leave as much as 10 inches of snow through central and Down East Maine, including most of Penobscot County. Five to 8 inches of snow was expected across Aroostook and northern Penobscot counties by this morning, said Joseph Hewitt, a senior forecaster with the National Weather Service in Caribou. Three to 5 inches were expected along coastal areas and in southern Maine.

“This is probably the biggest storm since the start of the winter season,” Hewitt said Monday.

Snowfall has been so scarce in recent months that the total annual snowfall of 42.2 inches in Caribou in 2006 represented a record low for the area, which averages 115 inches a year. With 28.9 inches, Bangor also registered a new low in snowfall for 2006, breaking the former 1979 record low of 29.1 inches.

Monday was different. The National Weather Service issued weather advisories and warnings across the state for snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain on the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday. The weather caused many businesses and day care centers to close and towns to implement parking bans.

But the impact was minimized because most government offices and schools, and many businesses, already were closed in remembrance of the slain civil rights leader.

State police and county sheriffs said there were a number of accidents on highways and back roads slickened by sleet and freezing rain, but no serious injuries were reported around the state. Plow and sand trucks were out in force, and the speed limit on the Maine Turnpike was reduced to 45 mph.

“It really hasn’t been bad out there,” said Maine State Police Sgt. Sean Hashey of the Orono barracks. “It seems as if a lot of people are staying off the road.”

Aroostook County did not see the first few snowflakes until afternoon. Light snow began falling in Houlton just before noon, and it didn’t begin hitting the ground in the St. John Valley until around 2 p.m.

Most high school sporting events were postponed or rescheduled.

Acadia National Park officials closed Ocean Drive at about noon Monday as a precaution. That section of road typically remains open throughout the winter and is expected to reopen today.

The lack of snow has hurt state tourism businesses that depend on snowmobiling, skiing and other winter sports to survive, but what has been really devastating is the unseasonably mild weather that melts the base of snow that could have made this season passable.

That probably won’t happen this week, Hewitt said. Arctic air masses will prompt wind chill warnings and make it seem as if it’s as cold as minus 20 to minus 30 degrees outside through the rest of the week, possibly mixing with a few more inches of snow by Monday.

That was good news to Darling in Millinocket, where some businesses have reported losing more than half of their regular incomes in January. He said he expects a big weekend crowd of snowmobilers.

“It just didn’t work out last year. There just was no snow,” Darling said. “Now I feel really strong about this season.”